Blood & Instinct
by The Oddity
Summary: It is every person’s instinct to survive, after all.
1. blood and instinct

_author's note_

Review if you liked it, but please no flames. Concrit is enjoyed.

Also, Clarice is not to be viewed as a mouthpiece for my own personal beliefs or thoughts on Angelica whatsoever. I have nothing against her as a character; it is simply Clarice's own personality. If you're confused here, read on to find out (although if you're a fan of Angelica, I highly encourage you not to).

**BLOOD & INSTINCT**

The algid night was fresh with the scent of cold, newly spilled blood. The walls were decorated with bullet holes, and a few feet away the window was shattered, yet the errant glass could only be found sticking awkwardly out of a man's lifeless skull. A cerise young hand pushed his head, so lightly to the touch, and observed as it lolled, very dead.

Clarice turned around, pulling her FNP-9 out of its holster on her belt. Another man stood in the doorway, much more alive than the terrorists scattered through the main room, wearing a sleek and traditional pinstripe suit. His attire, unlike the blonde cyborg's, was untarnished.

She lowered her pistol and eventually stowed it. The man coughed; "Well done."

"...Th...thank you, sir."

"I'd get your 53, but I'm afraid my shoes might get soaked." He moved somewhat despondently to the side of the doorframe, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a SIG SP 2340. "Pick it up and come here."

The blonde did as she was told, hearing the slight movement of liquid beneath her as she lifted the carbine off the floor and walked, shoes scraping across the tile all until she stood in front of her supervisor. She held it to him and he took it, turning and leaving the warehouse with her traipsing after.

Outside, four fratello Clarice recognized loitered together in a group, each child clutching an individual firearm: Giuseppe and Henrietta, Jean and Rico, Marco and Angelica, and Bernardo and Beatrice. Another female with hair a more darker blonde than Clarice's came whirling down from the superstructure on a harness. She wore a nice suit — or, it would have been nice, were her front not drizzled with blood.

She lost the harness and turned her bitter gaze upwards. "I'm on the ground, Hilshire!"

A man replied in kind: "Okay!"

Triela backed a few paces from the front of the warehouse when her supervisor spiraled downwards in a similar manner. He glanced around the fratello.

"Abele," he addressed Clarice's impeccable handler. "Do you mind sending Clarice up to fetch the equipment?"

"It's fine." Clarice looked up at her supervisor, cheeks a faint pinkish color as his eyes bore into her own. "Could Angelica perhaps go with her?"

The blonde jumped, startled by his request for another to accompany her. Immediately she turned her pastel blue orbs on the black-haired female standing next to her stout handler, who beamed and meandered towards her. Abele smiled at the youth as he passed Clarice the H&K 53 carbine, muttering darkly out of the corner of his mouth, "Kill any survivors."

With a diligent nod, she embarked back inside the warehouse, disregarding her partner. Blood sloshed about almost like a river until Clarice reached the staircase and looked over her shoulder at Angelica, who was holding her Steyr AUG.

"What are you staring at me for?" the elder cyborg inquired, causing the other to falter for a moment.

"You're a really good fighter for a new addition," Angelica said, smiling. Clarice's glare remained unchanging. "I've been feeling somewhat weak lately, so it feels nice to have someone with me."

"I'm not accompanying you, though," Clarice corrected, pouting as she set off up the stairs. "You're following me."

Angelica giggled a little. "That sounds more like—"

A deafening clang. Clarice froze. The sound of a tin can rattling against the cool, hard floor. She peered ahead, a sickening feeling looming in her stomach, and realized that her suspicions were quite ostensible: a man stood towering at the top of the stairs, holding a submachine gun. He would have been but a mere sinister outline were Clarice's vision not enhanced.

Instinctively, she pulled the dress-clad young female in front of her.

She was only focused on the moment. Their guns lay together, discarded on the ground like toys, slowly being entrenched in Angelica's blood as the bullets hammered into her flesh and skull, not even scathing Clarice. She didn't care about the other girl's life; it was her, now, in this moment. Survival of the smartest, the fittest, and the craftiest.

The roar of the SMG finally stopped, and Clarice slowly released the fabric of Angelica's dress, averting the sight of the mutilated corpse as she dipped down and picked up her 53, turning it upon the murderous man and killing him instantly with one bullet. She stepped over the dead girl who lay sprawled across stone and continued upwards until she reached the roof, grabbed Hilshire's equipment, and descended all the way back down. She wanted to abstain from taking Angelica with her just yet, and resolved to go back in for her.

A calm scene greeted Clarice: Henrietta was miserably attempting to wipe her P90 of the blood upon it, consequently getting it on her sleeve; Rico sat upon the grass not far with her Dragunov beside her; Hilshire was trying to persuade Triela to don his coat; and Beatrice loitered, her appearance woebegone, away from Bernardo, who was discussing with Jean.

The blonde brightened rapidly when she heard Abele's voice.

"Clarice," he said. His eyes traveled downwards at the equipment. "Good, you have it." She nodded and set it on the ground. "Go back in and get your gun. Where is Angelica?"

She darkened somewhat at the sound of the girl's name and turned, going back in. "I'm sure you'll understand."

Minutes passed, until the silhouette of an odd, lopsided figure trailed out...

Abele's eyes widened, his expression aghast. Several of the cyborgs screamed. Clarice dropped Angelica's carcass unceremoniously, looking positively unshaken by the events, and leaned against the building wall, taking her shoes off to wring her socks which had by now gone a deep, crimson color. The tattered form lay still amidst the silent horror, of crickets chirping blissfully in the trees.

"Clarice," Abele muttered feebly, brown hues fixated upon the dead Angelica Togni. "Clarice... What happened?"

"There was a man," Clarice replied idly, twisting a sock. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beatrice watching her. "He was going to shoot me, so..."

"So? What?"

"...So Angelica jumped in my way. She took the brunt of the bullets and...died."

Jean stepped up, arms folded. "She just...'died'."

Clarice blinked. "Yes, sir. The man carried a submachine gun."

"And you didn't do anything."

"There was nothing to do, Mr. Croce."

"Very well," Jean sighed, turning to the supervisors and their charges. "Tomorrow, we will hold a meeting as soon as possible and discuss this further. Abele, I expect you and Clarice to be present. You as well, Marco."

The former handler said nothing, his expression unreadable.


	2. the doctor

**THE DOCTOR**

Dr. Bianchi glanced at the clock perched upon the wall. 1:23 PM. In five minutes, he would be expecting a visitor of the thirteen year old sort, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Not Triela, but Clarice.

1:24.

He began to reread his previous notes on her — from a copy of her file about the girl she used to be, to old sessions that the good doctor himself had logged as they played out between them. Each time he refreshed his memory, he began to feel uneasy. It must have shown, because the child usually felt it necessary to point out how woebegone his appearance was, and inquired in a sort of mock-worry if he was sleeping all right.

1:26.

His eyes traveled over to the glass across from where he was sitting. He knew Abele was on the other side, alone, preparing to witness his cyborg during one of her regular therapy meetings. What would occur this time, and what he would decide to do afterwards, Dr. Bianchi couldn't say.

1:27.

Perhaps she was waiting outside the door, checking her watch every five seconds until it was time to arrive, just to be spot-on. Abele had 'preached' the ways of professionalism to the girl; Dr. Bianchi knew that the man didn't take the job lightly, but the effect it had on his protégée was staggering, and far beyond what the handler intended.

1:29.

Dr. Bianchi calmly began clearing his desk until nothing but a notebook remained, opened to a new page.

1:30.

The door clicked open. Clarice entered wearing an olive-green top and matching skirt, sable leggings and dirty, white sneakers. On her shoulder was the holster for her FNP-9. Dr. Bianchi sighed when his eyes rested upon the weapon.

"I'm sorry, did I bring it again?" came the sleek sound of the child assassin's voice, a permanent smirk plastered on her features. "I just came from practice."

"Yes, yes," Dr. Bianchi said absently. "Have a seat."

"Alright." She complied, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. The doctor blinked as he observed her, resting his head on his hand and waiting for the inevitable and customary query of...

"You look tired, sir. Are you sleeping well?" Clarice inquired.

"Yes, I'm fine, as I've told you every single time we've met," he replied, sighing again and writing something down. "The real question is: how have you been sleeping, Clarice?" He looked up, and saw that her face was no longer cocky.

Incredulously, with her odd pastel-colored eyes widened in the manner of a horrific actor, she said, "You can't tell me you're serious, sir. Be serious with me."

"I am being entirely serious."

"Surely you called me here the day after a big mission to discuss the tragic loss of my fellow comrade, Angelica Togni?"

"I didn't want to come off eager." He grinned despite himself, tapping his pen idly on the edge of the page.

"Wise."

"_Grazie_."

"Can we get to the point now, sir?"

"Why are you in such a hurry, Clarice?"

"My brother and I have to attend a meeting with Mr. Croce," she said, casting an almost anxious glance at the glass near her before quickly turning back to Dr. Bianchi. "Jean Croce. I wouldn't want to be late."

The doctor nodded, writing upon the paper furiously for a few minutes. It was strange to note that, although she expressed an antsy desire to depart soon, the blonde kept up a very collected demeanor; she sat with her hands in her lap, folded expertly, and even crossed her legs. Noticing this, Dr. Bianchi asked humorously, "Where did you pick up crossing your legs from?"

"I saw Ms. Ferro do it," Clarice replied sourly, uncrossing them.

"You're such a child..."

"Do you think so? Could we please get to Angelica, sir?"

Shifting in his chair, Dr. Bianchi said, "What happened, precisely? At the mission. And explain it to me, clearly. I know you haven't had your latest dosage yet. No lying, either."

Clarice muttered something that sounded vaguely like "so accusatory", before beginning:

"It was already dusk when we (that is, to say, my brother and I with the rest of the fratello teams) arrived to the site where the mission would take place. The warehouse was swamped with terrorists, and they all seemed to be planning to set off bombs at strategic places situated about Rome." She paused.

"But not after you got through with them, I assume?" Dr. Bianchi supplied drolly, watching his pen as he copied her recount onto paper.

"Of course." Crossing her legs yet again, she continued, "Triela and her handler, whatever his name is, scaled the roof while the rest of the fratello, including myself, prepared to enter and storm the place by entering through the windows at each floor level. I took the bottom, Angelica had the second, some brunette had the third, and Beatrice the fourth. Our orders were to kill anyone we saw."

Dr. Bianchi's pen scratched across the surface hurriedly, and Clarice waited until the noise settled. "Triela's handler is Hilshire and the brunette was probably Henrietta. Go on."

Gulping, she started her next passage somewhat awkwardly. "My...supervisor...had apparently made an error in his assumptions and the brunt of the terrorists was on my level and the one up. After a while, I began to hear the sound of two guns above me, so I believe Triela met with Angelica and gave her additional support."

"Were you jealous?"

"...No. I was fine."

Dr. Bianchi frowned skeptically. "Alright."

"As I was saying," the blonde coughed, "my floor became very messy. The lights went off; not that it was of any concern to me. Somebody grabbed my H&K 53 rifle from me, so I elbowed the window and grasped a piece of shattered glass and killed them with it."

Dr. Bianchi shuddered. "And your handler still made you go to practice today?"

"Why wouldn't he?" she scoffed. "I have a strict training regime. I can't afford to skip a day, regardless if my hand got a little cut up." The middle of her left hand, the doctor saw, was bandaged, the ivory-colored weavings tinted with red.

"But that wasn't the extent of your damage, was it?" Bianchi inquired.

"It was," Clarice nodded, eyeing her hand. "Oh, dear, I'll have to redo my bandages before we arrive to the meeting room..." She looked back up at the doctor and resumed her recount of the mission then. "The floor was absolutely covered in blood. I ruined that outfit I wore; Mr. Abele told me to just throw it away, so I did..."

"Clarice, just skip to the part where Angelica was killed."

Looking somewhat affronted that Dr. Bianchi did not want to listen to her fashion woes, the little blonde said, "Yes, sir.

"Mr. Abele requested that she follow me as I ascended the building to fetch the harness equipment on the roof. It seemed to function doubly as a 'last run-through' of the place, so he gave me strict orders to kill any survivors. As we went up towards the second floor, a man appeared, with a gun."

Dr. Bianchi stopped writing instantly. "What kind of gun? Was it the AUG?"

"I believe so."

"Terrible..." he muttered, shaking his head sadly and tapping his pen on the paper.

"I don't see how, sir."

He froze, looking up slowly at the cyborg seated in front of him. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'I don't see how, sir'," Clarice repeated in the same, lifeless tone. The two stared at each other wordlessly for a moment.

The air became filled with the sound of Dr. Bianchi scribbling again and, somehow, the word 'continue' was lost in the mix.

"Her death was very bittersweet," the child recalled, her words now tainted with a sense of somberness that, to Bianchi, didn't feel quite right. "She jumped in front of me as the man set off his rounds. One after one after one... The noise they made was more barbaric than that which regular firearms create. I don't know why she did it. I wish she hadn't; I wish...those rounds had hit me..."

She allowed her long tresses to grace around her eyes, obscuring her face as tiny sobs broke the silence.

"And...I di-didn't want to look at her corpse... I knew it w-would look awful..."

"Indeed, it was," Dr. Bianchi said, reminded of his morning spent examining a corpse and sipping coffee. He immediately lost his appetite for lunch. "Although... Doesn't your handler advocate Darwinism? I imagine your opinion of yourself would be quite higher than it is of your fellow operatives, judging by our past sessions. Then you really wouldn't have wanted to die instead of her."

"It hasn't necessarily effected me," Clarice said, smiling. "I have no objections to it, though. What my brother believes and wants, I will accept and do."

"Good, good." He turned to the next page, when the clock caught his eye. "Okay, I think I'll need to wrap this up quickly... Have you felt sick lately? Sleeping well, obeying—" He caught himself from asking a very stupid, and quite obvious, question. "Sleeping well, eating alright?"

"No, yes, yes, and yes," Clarice replied sweetly. "Thank you for listening to me, sir, and have a good day. May I leave?"

"Yeah, that would probably be good."

She stood up and flounced to the door, and waved farewell with one hurried "ciao!" before disappearing.

Dr. Bianchi leaned back, utterly exhausted as he said, "_I'm_ not sleeping well." He laughed at his statement.


	3. the meeting

**THE MEETING**

If there was anybody who felt as tired as the good doctor, even moreso, it was probably Marco Togni. The heavyset man reclined in his desk chair, raising his glass of water and taking a sip. He looked and, though he wanted to deny it, felt like utter hell ever since last night. The memento of Angelica's battered body kept cropping back into his mind's eye, robbing him of sleep; a beacon of a reminder far from the casual admonition that inside that little assassin was the same girl he used to adore, who misunderstood his negligence and revised, tougher methods...

His small, black-as-coal eyes rested upon a thin hardcover book, the sole treasure that he let grace his orderly desk. Emblazoned on the front of it was 'Il Principe del Regno della Pasta', authored (Marco noted rather sarcastically) by his ex-fiancée, volume one in the fairytale series. He wasn't sure if he would continue collecting the rest.

Strangely, however, he was suddenly stricken by a long-ago memory. After concluding the 'Pasta' tale, Marco had tried to introduce Angelica to more common, popular fairytales — 'Cinderella', 'Pinocchio', 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' — the list went on. But each time he finished one book, she would always remark that she enjoyed the first story, the 'Pasta' one, the most, because it felt more _human_ than the others. Marco didn't know how a child like Angelica would've been able to appreciate things like humanity after what'd been done to her, but that was such a cruel way to think of it.

A gentle knock came from the door, startling him out of his reminiscence and sending him sitting bolt upright in his chair. Jean's stern, all-too-easy to recognize voice called, "Marco, are you in there?"

"Uh, yeah, I am. One second," the handler replied, rising and tucking 'Pasta' carefully back into its slot on his bookcase, and making haste towards the entranceway. He unbolted and opened the door.

Jean considered him for a minute, almost as if sizing him up, before offering his hand in typical pseudo-friendly Jean etiquette. Marco acceded reluctantly, and both of them let go within a minute. There was a nervous shifting of weight from one foot to the other, until the final inevitable query, "So what do you want?"

"The meeting has just started. I wanted to speak with you before you arrived."

"About _what?_ Look, Jean," Marco said, grinning despite himself, "it's not as if I'm in 'mourning'. I don't want consolation. I want _out._"

"I understand, but you know that the Agency doesn't just discharge its personnel. I don't think it would suit you if I let you out, and besides, you leaving would make leeway for everyone else who feels the same as you. It would reduce the Agency to nothing."

Marco snorted derisively. "'Everyone else?' Who else feels like me? Tell me, Jean, who _else_ has lost a cyborg to some nut job's charge who spontaneously decided to play God?"

There was a tenseness, a silence following his accusatory words. The sole thing that seemed stable was Jean's piercing stare.

"...So you're saying the cyborg intentionally killed Angelica?"

"Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. All I know for sure is there's something very seriously wrong with this whole thing."

"Well, this is not the place to discuss it. Abele is, most likely, waiting for us."

"Fine, let's go."

They arrived wordlessly to the conference room fifteen minutes later. The room itself was a slightly enclosed space with a large table and several chairs poised around the sides. A cleared bulletin board hung upon the stretch of bland, boring wall. Seated already on the side was a man wearing a well-ironed black suit, who pushed his hair out of his eyes in a swift manner at the advent of Jean and Marco.

Abele, to Marco, gave off the distinct impression of constantly being rushed to accomplish things in a timely manner. His hair, possibly, resembled that — short, messy and light brown, it contrasted acutely with the sheer orderliness of the rest of his appearance. Beside him was a young girl, her hair so light blonde it looked nearly white, and her eyes like pale, blue swirls of mist. She wore an achromous sweater that matched her tresses; Marco's stomach dropped. To anybody else, this was Clarice — to Marco, he was reminded painfully of Angelica.

Jean sat down at the head of the table, a small smattering of papers in front of him. He examined each one thoroughly with a calculating expression for at least fifteen minutes. Marco observed as, with each passing second it seemed, Abele gave off more and more impatience.

Finally, as he had surmised, the professionally-inclined supervisor burst, "Can we please get on with the meeting, Mr. Croce? Clarice and I were going to do eat lunch afterwards."

"Patience, Abele," Jean snapped testily. The brunet quieted down instantly, like a cowering puppy backing off. Marco half-expected Clarice to pat him on the head sympathetically, but the cyborg did not move, and continued smiling pleasantly.

It was in that moment that Marco experienced the most profoundest sense of loss. He felt like a stranger, an odd person who didn't belong, almost envious of Abele having Clarice by his side. Had he really cared for Angelica all along but didn't want to admit it? Was he no more childish than the two people seated across from him who strived to achieve corporate excellence amongst their fellows?

Not wishing to deal with it, he averted his gaze back to Jean, who had finished with the papers and folded his hands in front of him in a stately manner.

"So it is with my understanding that at around ten o'clock or so yesterday evening, one of our cyborgs was killed." His words hit a harsh note with Marco. "Dr. Bianchi told me your recount to him, and that apparently there was a man carrying her AUG—"

Clarice gave a tiny cough. When all the eyes in the room turned on her, she said, "Oh, did I say that? It wasn't the AUG, she had it with her. I must have slipped up and told him that; I'm sorry." She paused thoughtfully. "Go on."

Jean, seemingly unabashed, continued. "There was a man with a submachine gun. He was going to kill you, so Angelica sacrificed herself and died instead."

"Jean, I have to interrupt here, but I don't see why we have to make such an issue over this," Abele interjected. "It's all rather frivolous. Just assign Mr. Togni a new agent and we can all get on with our lives."

"I don't want a new agent," Marco said sullenly. "I've already told Jean, I want to get out of here. I could deal with it when they said I had to turn a little girl into an assassin. I could deal with it when they doped her up and I had to retrain her again. _I cannot deal with it when somebody else's cyborg murders her._"

"Excuse me, Mr. Togni, but my cyborg doesn't murder a single thing except what I tell her to, and I did not tell her to kill Angelica!"

"What makes you so sure she isn't capable of independent thinking? Are you really that stupid?"

"The drug is _supposed_ to make her loyal to me! She won't act unless she has my orders!"

"Conditioning doesn't always work one-hundred percent."

"Well, it should, shouldn't it?"

"Abele, Marco, _be quiet_," Jean snapped, silencing the both of them. "It's true that we're still working out the bugs in the cyborgs' prosthetics and brainwashing, but this is not the place nor time to be discussing it. I'd like to hear Clarice's take on this."

The blonde looked up, putting on an innocent expression as she stated, "It's all true. In fact, I don't know why anybody would accuse me of killing one of my best friends..."

"_Bullshit,_" Marco retorted, earning a sharp reprimand from the girl's handler, though it was ignored. "Angelica wasn't friends with you! She probably would've tried if she were still here, but no, you two weren't as close as you say you were. I don't believe you."

"So now you're accusing me of lying," Clarice said, visibly drooping. "I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. With Mr. Togni's outright inability to face the fact that his cyborg died, he wants to pin _me_ as her killer?"

"I'm not dealing with anymore of this," Abele said, rising from his seat. "Jean, my sincerest apologies, but we've got to go. If you want to be adamant about pressing your point, you can get back to me later, Togni. Let's go, Clarice." He started towards the door and beckoned the young girl, who followed him.

Jean looked to Marco. "Meeting adjourned, I...suppose." There was a faint acerbic edge to his tone that pointed that perhaps he didn't take well to his authority being overpowered.

Eventually, Marco was the only one remaining inside the meeting room, which now seemed more like a courthouse to him than it ever had before. Somehow, he felt this represented the passage of time than anything else.


	4. the history lesson

**THE HISTORY LESSON**

Time.

Time, Abele Cisternino mused, his brain screaming at itself to shut down as he sat in his office chair. Time was what brought him to this place.

He knew that his father had been right about kids. If you have a young child waiting on your every word as if it were the prophecy of God, you don't preach stupid things to them. As a result, Abele now rested with the murder of a colleague's cyborg on his shoulders to weigh him down. Some handler _he_ turned out to be.

He recalled Clarice's face, so innocently rounded, framed by golden hair. Only a few hours ago had she 'spilled' the truth about Angelica Togni's unfortunate death to her supervisor. Only a few months ago had he seen a girl named Ulrica Blomgren in the hospital, hopelessly crippled with horrid mental scars. Her story was about as depressing as any other eligible child assassin's, but there had been something there that invoked Abele's compassion for the girl that made him choose _her_. Her, while there were so many others; victims of bombings, rape, kidnapping, health problems, amputation.

It started with Ulrica's parents: Henrik and Annika Blomgren, from Sweden. They moved to Italy when their first daughter was three — there, the baby who was destined to become a cold-blooded killer was born. They moved for two reasons; one, Annika's aging parents lived in Rome and she hadn't seen them for ten years, and two, it had been her childhood wish to go to Italy.

Henrik found himself out of work. What began as a promise that his wife's grandparents would support them turned into a custody battle: they wanted Beata, the first daughter. Annika was determined and refused to give them her child. As a result, the family suffered and Henrik took up drinking. He scored his alcohol from the scum of the streets. Beata eventually succumbed to her grandparents and went to live with them because of this, and a depressed Annika found herself alone with only Ulrica as company.

It would be a few years before anything else notable occurred in this already-too-tragic life that was sure to greet Ulrica with an iron fist: her father killed himself in front of her. No less than two months following this, Annika found a new boyfriend: Adriano Barzetti, an Italian man with a heavily successful business. The family moved out of their home in the Roman ghetto and into a mansion.

The last child Annika would ever have was christened Adelina, born when Ulrica was five.

● ● ●

"Kill her."

The Italian's baritone voice, strong and cold as a stone, sent a quiver along Annika's spine. She turned around from the painting she was rearranging, watching her new husband apprehensively. "K-kill who now, honey?"

"Ulrica. She's a nuisance and a waste. Adelina's happy and healthy enough for the both of us. Don't you agree?" He tipped the edge of a rounded wineglass to his mouth, savoring the vintage champagne contained within it.

"Um... Yes, but—"

"But what?"

"But...but she's my daughter." Annika laughed nervously. "I love her."

"Yes, yes, but you see, Annika, _I_ don't. And I'm the one who has given you a mansion to live in, possessions to take pride in, and the clothes on your back. What I say, you will do, no?" It wasn't much of a question. Not knowing what to do, Annika replied, "I— um, I...I...don't know."

Adriano glared. "You 'don't know'."

"I am...I am unsure."

"How can you be unsure? Look around you, Annika. Look at the vaulted ceilings, the cherrywood floors. Look at the vast collection of frivolity you own: vases, dolls, cars, jewelry, makeup, dresses and shoes. Then think back to the life you had before with that worthless excuse for a man."

She appeared to do as he said. Adriano waited, patiently.

"Kill her." He produced a bottle filled with capsules. Annika approached him cautiously and took the bottle, turning it over and examining it.

"They're sleeping pills. Just dose her on some of them, it should knock her off her feet." He sipped again. "Do it tonight, preferably. And if you don't... Well," he chuckled. "You know what'll happen."

"Yes, sir."

● ● ●

The attempt had not been much of a success and Ulrica lived — but from then-on she was confined to the mansion's roomy basement and missing an arm. Adriano had decided that if he couldn't trust his wife to murder her daughter, then he ought to have the girl suffer instead while the rest of the family enjoyed themselves. Ulrica was beaten and fed only twice per week: he diet consisted mainly of cold soup broth and soggy vegetables.

It was times like these, that Abele almost thought that Clarice had a better life now than she did before.

But Ulrica hadn't gone entirely without a sympathizer...

● ● ●

"Um, Ulrica? May I see you?"

This time, the voice of a young girl rang out across the darkness. Her hair was short and white-blonde, and her eyes a curious brown hue. She spoke near-perfect Italian.

Slowly, Adelina approached the heap on the ground, a girl wearing a tattered dress. Ulrica's hair, like her sister's, was blonde, sweeping over her distressed form. Every now and then, the one-armed child let out a raspy sob to break the silence that had descended upon the two of them.

"_G-god kväll_, Adelina..." she greeted, looking up.

Adelina simpered. "It's actually the afternoon. I didn't have school today."

"What day is it, Adelina...?"

"Oh, gosh... How do I say it..." She seemed to be racking her brain for a brief moment. "Umm... _Söndag?_ Is that correct?"

"_Ja_. Sunday," Ulrica murmured, using her right arm to heave herself into an upright position. "What month?"

"_Juni_. Happy birthday." She offered her woebegone sister a few slices of chocolate arranged upon an elaborately decorated plate. "This was all I could find. We don't have any cake left in the house and the cook said it would take an hour to bake one."

Carefully, Ulrica lifted a piece and tasted it. As she did, Adelina sat down beside her on the cold stone floor, covering her knees with her embroidered dress.

"Oh! I just remembered..." She reached into her bag, extracting a flashlight from within and clicking it on as she stood up. "It's always so dark in here that I can't find the lightswitch. There it is..."

She flicked it. Several dusty bulbs sprang to life, illuminating Ulrica's dirty mattress in the corner and the bathroom a few feet away from it. Most interesting, however, were the empty milk bottles sitting in one of the niches. Adelina turned her flashlight off and walked into the center of the room, eyeing the decorations with distaste while her sister devoured the rest of the chocolate.

"It's so dingy in here. How do you survive?" she inquired, turning.

"You."

"...Oh."

Adelina sat back down, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "...Mother doesn't hate you, you know."

"She does."

"No, she doesn't. She would much rather have you sleep in your own room, and wear nice clothes and go to school and eat with the rest of us at dinnertime. She doesn't want for it to be this way."

"But it is this way."

"That's Daddy's fault. He doesn't like you."

"I know."

"Well, I can't help it. I'm...sorry."

Adelina fidgeted nervously with the hem of her sleeve. A cockroach quickly scurried out of sight. The incessant _drip drip_ of a faucet could be heard.

"What is that?"

"The tub. If I turn the water completely off, it won't come back on again."

"...Oh. Huh."

They were both so quiet.

"Look in that bag. I bought you some shampoo and a present."

Ulrica lifted the bag and looked inside it. Out came a white-colored bottle and a small wrapped box. She began to undo the red ribbon and paper as Adelina watched, beaming.

In front of her eyes gleamed a magnificent, robust opal, hanging on a golden chain and laying on some soft material inside the box. She took in its appearance, slowly, and when she looked back to her sister, her eyes glistened with the tears of appreciation. "Th...thank you."

"I'll get you out of here soon, I promise."

● ● ●

It was with Adelina's help that Ulrica would have ever survived to be who she would become. One evening, when Adriano and Annika were out, Adelina carted Ulrica to a nearby state hospital, abandoning her at its entrance for the night. Nobody knows what happened to Adelina after that — whether she was murdered, put in the basement, or simply disowned by her rich parents. But one thing was for certain: Annika did eventually kill herself, although it was entirely by accident.

She had overdosed on sleeping pills.


	5. coming and going

**COMING AND GOING**

'Cacophonously shrill' best described what sort of evening Claes was having. Fractured pieces of what was trying to be a violin sonata cried out across the hallway from an open door — only decipherable enough for her to know what song the perpetrator was attempting to play. In its own way, it sounded terrifying; there was nothing like churning the sharp, bare edges of a sonata, but Claes's all-too-sensitive hearing found it annoyingly grating.

"Go find who's making that noise and kill them. It is _way too late_ for Bartók."

Slumping along the corridor miserably was Triela, hopelessly complying to her roommate's demands. She held secret suspicions that Claes just didn't find the works of the Hungarian composer to be very much to her liking, but even then, the person making the racket was no virtuoso. Given the blonde's recent moodiness, she might be up to actually killing whoever it was.

She peered into the room from where the noise seemed to be, expecting perhaps a drugged up Rico trying to use a rake, only to find a girl with silvery-blonde hair sitting on a stool, dragging a bow across the viola, her eyes shut tight. Perhaps she was playing from memory, which would excuse the lack of sheet music and the horrible manner of what was coming out. Wincing visibly, Triela called out, "Uh, hello there."

Clarice twitched and the music stopped with a screech. She looked up at her visitor, observing her silently. Her mouth stretched into a wide smile. "Hello, Triela."

"Yeeeah, I was just...passing by. Nice viola you've got there. What're you playing?"

"Thank you. Béla Bartók's solo violin sonata, the third movement."

Her replies were prompt, as though they had been planned ahead of time. Triela nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other, standing on the threshold as if she were scared of entering the other girl's room. Not that there was anything wrong with it — rather simplistic in aesthetics, with a circular floor rug, a dresser, a single bed and two framed photographs of strange Technicolor kittens on the right-side wall. It was just the sheer orderliness of it that caused Triela to stay rooted to her spot, afraid of tarnishing the kempt dorm.

Along the side of the wall was an instrument case and an H&K UMP-45 SMG. Triela found herself staring at it, and when Clarice wandered over and lifted the weapon upwards, she felt her spine quiver with an odd mixture of excitement and fear.

Her eyes narrowed and she pointed it at Triela's face, peering through the sights with delicate curiosity. The blonde on the receiving end of the barrel froze.

"You have a submachine gun just like this one," Clarice said softly. "It happens to be my favorite. That's why I keep it here with me, in the dormitory."

"I-I see," Triela replied, bracing the doorframe. She took a single, nervous step backwards, but Clarice only took a step forward, keeping her rifle pointed solely on her visitor's left eye.

"Tell your dispirited roommate that if she has a problem with me, she can take it up personally and professionally with me, rather than send a messenger girl in men's clothing to my doorstep." She lowered the gun and pressed it against Triela's throat. "Understand?"

"Y-yeah..." The muzzle dropped. Triela swallowed thickly. "Yeah... Can do, C-Clarice."

Clarice smirked. "Good. And send her my condolences, as I share her feelings on Angelica's most brutal and untimely death."

"Y-you do?"

"Yes, I do." She laid her UMP-45 back against the wall and sat on her stool, picking up her viola once more. "Now leave, please. Visiting hours are over."

● ● ●

The door opened and then closed as Triela slid back into the dormitory. Claes peered at her from the top bunk and demanded, "Well? What did you say?"

The blonde felt a strange knot in her throat that constricted her vocal chords. In her best effort, she managed to stutter. "I-I...um... I told..."

"Triela, what did you say to her?"

"I...I didn't have to say anything, alright?! She...she told me to tell you that you can take it up with her personally, and also th-that she's very sad about...about..."

Claes's brows furrowed in confusion. "About...?"

"A-about _Ange!_ About Ange _dying!_"

Immediately, the girls fell silent. Triela walked to the table and sat, slumping over and hiding her face from view. In a quiet voice, she began, "First Pinocchio, now this..."

"Triela..."

"Just...don't say anything. Okay? I really, _really_ don't feel like talking right now."

● ● ●

Later that evening after dinner, Marco was on his way to his room when he happened upon the open door to Abele Cisternino's office. This event was a highly implausible one, as this door was normally shut and locked tight, whether Abele was in or out. Sensing something might be wrong, Marco looked inside.

The entire office was bare. It was obvious to Marco that it hadn't always been this way, however, because at the foot of the bed, a man was huddled in a black coat, closing one of his many traveling suitcases with some difficulty. One of them sprung open and he swore, turning around and giving a small shriek of surprise at his casual observer.

Marco would probably look back on this incident and describe Abele as appearing like he'd seen a ghost. The man wore an old sweater and jeans, accentuated by an open longcoat and a rather frayed, dark brown beret. His skin was void of all color, giving off the strange impression of a ghost.

In a meager voice, he said, "B... _Buon sera_, Mr. Togni."

"'_Sera_," Marco replied nonchalantly, moving inside. "What's all this for?"

"Redecorating!" Abele squeaked promptly. "What do you think it's for? Do you think I'm leaving?"

"Well, no, not especially..." In all honesty, Marco didn't know what to say. Seeing Abele like this was a complete turnaround from the person he'd remembered from the meeting: Abele, so cold and impatient then was now terrified and, dare he say it, _hiding_ something?

Despite his urge just to remain quiet and leave, he began, "Uh, listen, Abele—"

"I'm a no-good handler."

The words struck out and silenced Marco. The way Abele had said them, how hopeless and miserable he sounded, echoed something the bespectacled handler recalled once believing of himself. Maybe they were both useless at this point: but Marco, for the life of him, couldn't understand why Abele would be.

"I-I don't understand."

"I told you, I'm no good. I'm horrible. If anything, I should've been Clarice's shield, not Angelica." He issued a tiny, dry sob that was more pitiful than anything Marco had ever heard. "I'm sorry, Mr. Togni."

"I...still don't get it. What happened?"

"Clarice approached me after the meeting a-and told me something. Something that is my fault, that I'm ashamed of. So I'm going to leave the Agency."

"You can't leave the Agency, Abele. Believe me, I've tried," Marco added in a bitter undertone, still sore about what Jean told him. "So I suggest whatever you did you should put behind you and go on."

"I-I just can't," Abele stammered. "So I've contacted a friend. An old friend. He's with the Mafia. They can hide me somewhere far away from here."

Marco's eyes widened. He faltered, before saying, "You can't do that."

"Watch me." The brunet lifted up his suitcase and started for the door, but collided with Marco, who was blocking the exit. Abele nudged him and said, "Get out of my way."

"I won't let you do what Raballo did. You'll end up dead."

"I assure you I won't." Somewhat humorously, Abele's brisk attitude and manner of speech had made a sudden comeback. "I don't lack the intelligence that he did. He just 'left'. I've made preparations ahead of time. I sincerely doubt that any of your hit-kids are going to be able to locate me."

"I'm still not going to let you leave."

There was a shifting of cloth, and at once a SIG Pro SP 2340 was pointed at Marco's head to silence him. The tension in the room rested in a single bullet that would be the deciding factor in this situation: does Marco live, or does he die?

"Relax. I'm not going to shoot," said Abele. "I'm going to give you a choice first. You can come with me and escape this hellhole, or you can die, right here, right now. Which do you choose?"

"I choose neither," Marco replied through gritted teeth, catching the handler off-guard as he made a swipe for the pistol. Abele stumbled and Marco caught the gun. He turned it on its owner, who now looked more terrified than before.

"It's my turn to give you a choice. You can stop being a stupid jackass, or you can go ahead and try to get past me. Good luck."

Abele mouthed wordlessly, as if he was trying to make a sound but nothing could come out.

He suddenly burst into a run, ducking underneath Marco's arms and entering the hallway. Marco swore loudly and chased after him, hesitant to fire the pistol.

"_Goddamnit!_"

Abele descended the stairs, skipping the final step and continuing towards the door at a strong, effortless pace.

Perhaps it was Marco's morality that prevented him from shooting Abele. He squeezed the pistol grip for security, making sure that he really had stolen the gun and that it was with him in that moment, and sped up. Abele was nearly to the doors now — but surely, someone will have heard all the noise and gone to investigate. Surely...

Surely...

Abele halted in front of the glass exit. The automatic doors slid open for him and he looked over his shoulder before running down the stone steps, grinning as if he were mocking Marco.

"Abele!"

Now was the time to use it, Marco realized, listening to the thud of his shoes against the floor. He was tired; he hadn't ran this much in a long time, ever since Angelica was put in the hospital.

If he made it out alive, he resolved to train more. He fired two shots at Abele, missing both times.

Just as he kicked another round off the gun, the fact that he was coming too close too quickly to the doors became suddenly evident and he collided with them. The pistol dropped from his hand and fell down the short with him, rattling at the base.

He couldn't really feel his limbs. A trickle of blood ran along his jaw line and into a neat drip on the pavement. He could hear Abele's voice overhead.

"Aww, did you fall, Mr. Togni? Shame, it doesn't look like you can move."

The engine of a car flared up, and in the blink of an eye, Abele was gone.


	6. the girl

**THE GIRL**

There weren't all that many words you could use to possibly describe most of the rooms in a hospital. Cold, drab, normal, boring. That was exactly where Marco found himself in that moment, entrenched in silence, blinded by the sheer colorless state of the walls. His mattress wasn't very comfortable, and for some reason or another, half of the hospital room was cut off by darkness.

...And that was when Marco realized that he couldn't see out of his right eye.

"_Wh-what the hell?!_" he gasped, placing a hand to his head and feeling tightly-wrapped bandages covering the side of his cranium. He sighed irritably. "Damn eye... Where are my glasses?"

He focused his attention on the tray sitting on top of the bedside table. On it were his glasses, among a syringe and a cup of room-temperature water. Carefully, Marco raised his left arm and lifted his spectacles off, fitting them on his face. The room became substantially more clear, though not any less _white_.

"Good lord..." he whispered. "Did they turn me into a cyborg?"

He wondered what it felt like to be a cyborg. He knew that the conditioning erased the patient's memories, and, curiously, he couldn't seem to recall what had happened the previous night. He also knew that cyborgs had superhuman strength, and were loyal to their handlers to a fault, but Marco couldn't say much for both of those

"Alright, good. I'm definitely not a cyborg," he said, with some sort of still-looming worry in the back of his mind. "I am _not_ a cyborg. What the hell am I thinking?"

The door clicked and swung open. Marco sat upright, alarmed by the three men who entered the room: Lorenzo, Jean, and one of the constantly anonymous-looking doctors.

The graying chief offered his hand to Marco. He could've sworn he saw the corners of Lorenzo's mouth twitch, as if resisting a smile. Jean, however, was obviously unimpressed, and broke up the handshake as soon as it began.

"Now, now, Jean. You told me you wouldn't act rash," Lorenzo reminded.

"Er, hold on a second," Marco said, becoming nervous when the two set their sights upon him. "What...exactly...happened? I mean, it's a little awkward when I wake up and I can't see out of my right eye, let alone find myself in a hospital with no explanation."

Jean bristled with contempt. "You're the very cause of the downfall of the Social Welfare Agency and you can't even remember what you _did?_"

"_Jean_," Lorenzo muttered warningly. The doctor exiting the room temporarily distracted Marco, who was addressed next: "I have reason to believe that you were the last person who was with Abele last night. Correct?"

"Me? Maybe," he replied, frowning dubiously. "I remember I was kind of interested in talking to him about Clarice..."

"Well, hopefully you learned something, because now he's gone," Jean said. "Abele disappeared in the middle of the night with no explanation. Giuseppe found you outside the handlers' building, unconscious and bleeding. Two of Abele's suitcases were still inside his office, though it appears he took his essentials with him and not much else."

Marco's eyes widened in shock. He mouthed wordlessly like a dumbstruck fish, all of what had happened rushing back to him. The gun, the chase, the blood; it came back, haunting him. He stared at the whiteness of the sheet covering him, and for a few minutes, sat and relived the experience of last night.

"I see you understand the reality of the situation," the blonde said smugly. "Now that we're all on the same page, I would like to discuss what to do about this situation."

"I've already reached that decision," Lorenzo said, turning towards the door with his hands held securely behind his back. "Marco, you should be well enough to walk in a matter of two days' time. By then you will receive instructions from me. I have alerted the _fratello_ teams to the news, though I have no idea where exactly to begin searching for him, as I fear he has left Rome."

Just as he turned the door handle, Marco called out to him. "Wait just a second, Chief Lorenzo."

"Hm?"

"I...I remember what Abele said. He told me he was going to contact someone in the Mafia to help hide him. Maybe you could start there."

The chief was silent for a moment, considering the idea. Then, finally, he said, "Thank you, Marco. Goodbye."

● ● ●

The nurse paused by the door, her finger lingering on the lightswitch. She looked over her shoulder at the heavyset man who lay in bed, and a sympathetic sort of smile graced her features. "Do you need anything else, Mr. Togni?"

"No thank you, Adriana," Marco replied. The lights went off.

"Goodnight."

The door closed slowly, and Marco was left alone in a room illuminated by the full moon shining through the window. Outside, the trees were roused by wind. He was content to stare at the ceiling.

He wasn't quite sure what he would face tomorrow when the hospital would release him from its gripping, white walls. It made sense that he would be assigned a new cyborg in Angelica's place, some new girl to teach how to fire a gun at, how to dodge, kick, hit, and disarm the enemy. In fact, he almost didn't have the energy or patience to think about it.

_Angelica..._

Had he known what her eventual fate would be back in the early days of the Agency, would he have perhaps tried to make the most of their time together? Jean warned against becoming attached to a "tool", and right he was to have done so, but... Angelica, to Marco, had not always been such. She was a normal, little girl at the beginning. It was just what happened with the conditioning that changed her to him.

He blinked once, twice, and then finally, drifted off to sleep.

● ● ●

The hospital was not entirely quiet all the time. On one particular morning, which happened to be the same day Marco was released from his white-walled prison, the clacking sound of Henrietta's brown penny loafers could be heard repetitively as she raced down the corridor. Up the staircase she went, and at room 15-B she screeched to a halt and reached for the handle when it twisted on its own. The door opened to reveal a man twice her size, who leaned on a walking cane unsteadily.

"Good morning, Mr. Marco!" Henrietta beamed. "It's a wonderful day, isn't it?"

What Henrietta classified as a "wonderful day", Marco wasn't sure; wonderful in the weather sense, or did the brunette constantly have days so great that she could call them just that?

"Eh, yeah," Marco grunted, tapping the cane on the tile floor.

Suddenly, the small girl's demeanor turned shy and introverted as she stared at her shoes. In her most polite tone, she began, "Jean told me to ask you if you could go to room 13-A. And to please think of a girl's name in the meantime."

Marco couldn't help but be slightly taken aback. "Already?" he said, glancing wearily at the staircase at the end of the hallway. Henrietta looked up and nodded. "Well, alright." He hesitated to pat her on the shoulder, and eventually decided not to.

"I have to go now," she said, still smiling as brightly as the morning sun. "Bye, Mr. Marco." She turned and headed for the staircase, Marco watching her as she grew more and more distant before she finally disappeared around the corner. He sighed, flexed his hand, and followed after her, diligently using the cane.

"I feel like Raballo, sheesh," he muttered. "Alright, a girl's name, a girl's name... Well, I like Katharine. Alessa sounds like a good name, too." He tried to mentally go down the list of names of lasting, cyborg operatives. "Wait, we have an Alessa." He stopped at the top of the stairs and gazed down prior to descending, partially afraid that Adriana's assessments of his ability to walk were true.

The bottom floor was a bit more lively than the upper ones. There were a few doctors and a scattering of nurses, but the Agency's hospital didn't see enough clients to really make the employees work that much. Mostly, they stuck around in case a girl's arm needed to be patched up, or a leg replacement was due, or to administer conditioning dosages.

A peculiar feeling arose in Marco. He felt suddenly apprehensive, and hesitated to walk towards room 13-A. Just another little girl was waiting in there to absorb all the knowledge of guns and CQB that Marco had to offer. The thought made him sick to his stomach as he faced the door and grasped the handle, knowing what was waiting for him beyond the threshold...

The room was empty, save for a small body in the bed. She appeared to lack hair until Marco realized just how light her blonde was. _French?_ he mused, and left his walking cane in the corner as he shut the door behind him.

It seemed stupid to approach someone so innocent with such caution and fear. Come to think of it, Marco wasn't even this terrified on his first day with Angelica.

As he came closer, however, the sickened feeling he had for his own suddenly turned into abject horror. For the girl wasn't any run-of-the-mill French child, but a girl with _Swedish_ hair, and a _Swedish_ face, who stuck out in a crowd of Italians...

Clarice.

"No," Marco breathed quietly, suppressing a shudder. "You're kidding."

_Is this the right room?_ he thought, then checked the plaque on the door. It was. Were Henrietta's directions bugged? Was this a practical joke that Jean wanted to play on him?

Jean was hardly one for jokes, though.

"You know what? No," Marco said, slumping into a vacant chair, still overcome by shock. "I'm not going to treat this any differently. She's a cyborg just like the next one."

_But why her? Couldn't they find a new girl? Cyborgs aren't very useful after they've bonded with their handlers... Unless..._

She stirred briefly. Marco locked his sights on her as she turned over on her side, opened her eyes, and yawned. She stared at him with curiosity.

"Hello," said Clarice, no trace of hidden motives or snideness in her voice. Just a pure, simple greeting.

"H-hello," Marco replied. Realizing he should be more formal, he stood up. "I'm Marco Togni, and you're at the Social Welfare Agency."

"Yes, come to think of it, this place does look rather familiar. I think I dreamed about it," the blonde said, playing with the hem of her T-shirt.

"That's because you've lived here for a long time."

"Oh. So this is my home?"

"It is."

"How nice," she said, brightening slightly. "Do I live in this room?"

"Of course not, don't be an idiot," Marco snapped testily.

She frowned. "What's my name, Mr. Togni?"

"Don't call me 'Mr. Togni'," he said. "'Marco' will do. And your name is..." He stopped, thinking. Somehow, he got on the topic of firearms. He recalled a beast of a sniper rifle he encountered once during his line of service to the NOCS... Ultima Ratio Hecate II. 12.7x99mm, bolt-action, with a seven-round magazine. "Your name is Hecate."

"Hecate," she said, as if trying it out. "Hecate... Shouldn't it start with a 'C'? Or was it a 'K'..."

"_Hecate_," Marco pressed impatiently.

"Okay."

Marco turned away and started for the door. He reached for the handle. "Get some rest. I'll be back tomorrow and you can go back to living in your dormitory with the others."

"Yes, sir."

He flinched. Those two, crippling words...

"'Bye."


	7. the photograph

**THE PHOTOGRAPH**

Dr. Bianchi felt, in a sense, that it was his duty to remain unbiased as far as the relationships of the several varying _fratello_ go. He maintained that there truly was no "right" way to do things, and as long as they performed their tasks smoothly, all was well.

Of course, this didn't necessarily mean that a _fratello_'s history didn't factor at all in the final confrontation between handler and operative. He, like so many employees of the Social Welfare Agency, believed that accomplishing missions was the main priority, until Elsa came along and showed him up. Emphasis on "him", as really, Dr. Bianchi couldn't say much for Jean or anybody else.

"It could very well be his downfall..." the doctor mused aloud, eye-level with a tape recorder and a notebook that laid open to the first page of his sessions with the blonde-haired girl called Clarice.

Then, suddenly, the door to his office was knocked upon, and a feminine voice said from behind the barrier with an air of uncertainty: "_Scusa_?"

"Y-yes, dear!" Dr. Bianchi replied promptly, sitting upright properly now. The door opened and the unmistakable face of his wife, framed by straight brown hair and a pair of glasses, appeared. She balanced a tray laden with what seemed to be Dr. Bianchi's dinner in one hand and did it exceptionally well. "I figured you'd be shut-up in your office tonight. I made _ribollita_ for dinner."

"Ah, your speciality."

She strolled over and searched for a spot on his crowded desk to put the tray. Instantly, his hands leapt to the recorder and notebook and quietly tossed them into one of the drawers. Smiling serenely, Mrs. Bianchi placed it in the center in front of her husband, then planted a kiss on the top of his head.

"This looks great, Anna," he said, although his mind was not entirely focused on the food that awaited him.

"I would've made your favorite," she explained, folding her arms, "but I wasn't sure if you'd be coming home tonight! They make you work such long shifts at that government set-up. It's so hopeless."

"Now, now," Dr. Bianchi said. "The money is excellent. You remember what it was like when we were engaged; we had to live at your parents' house in Florence for a year before I could save up enough to find an apartment for us in Rome." She gave him a slightly menacing glare and he flinched. "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with your parents' house in Florence, it's very lovely, I especially enjoyed the wine they insisted on serving me all the time..."

"They're wine enthusiasts, it's not like they were trying to get you drunk," Anna replied, peeking inside the top drawer of one of the two tall filing cabinets that flanked the doctor's desk. She made a small 'hmm' noise although she did not peruse any of the files contained within. "They're also art enthusiasts. After all — Leonardo da Vinci was born in Florence. So was Donatello."

"Your parents were also very clear about _that_ fact, too," Dr. Bianchi reminded, recalling the hours Anna's father would spend relaying Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi's biography to anybody who had ears to listen: in particular, his daughter's then-husband-to-be.

Anna chuckled and started for the door. "Well, have fun." She was midway through closing the door when she suddenly stopped. "Oh, and, by the way? I expect you to take next Wednesday and Thursday off."

Dr. Bianchi groaned. "I'll see what I can do..."

"Thanks, honey." The door closed.

He reclined in his comfortable desk chair, feeling as though he could go to sleep at that moment, but the presence of Annalisa's _ribollita_ in the room was too strong for him to deny (that and he would feel bad if he didn't eat it). So with what seemed like great effort, he sat and inched himself closer to the desk, hovering over the soup and the spoon that lay waiting for him. He grabbed it, ushered some of the colorful soup onto it, and raised it to his mouth, finding it to be, unsurprisingly, quite good. He then scooted the tray towards the back of the desk and opened the drawer that contained the notebook, taking it out again and opening it, though he didn't read anything.

This had become a rather routine thing to do during moments of intense calm. He could sit for hours and merely turn pages, thinking idly to himself. In his terms, it was just a habit that had evolved from — he felt a bit ashamed to admit it — his revelations about Clarice's personality and her behavior as an operative. Logically, she shouldn't have bothered him as much as she did (truth be told, there were many girls who had more issues than her), which was probably why he subconsciously turned those pages and listened to those recordings, searching for some clue to explain his own nervous energy.

"Yes, of course," Dr. Bianchi said. Perhaps the answer was right in front of him, clear as day: Clarice was just plain creepy. But he wanted to dig deeper, find meaning to the psychological jumble that presented itself as a thirteen-year-old blonde. His mind ran in endless circles as he contemplated the possible explanations, and it seemed the only cure for him at his point was a handy pill named ibuprofen. But Annalisa urged him not to grow dependant on the little headache-stoppers, so he only took one during extreme times of ill-ease.

He took a sweeping assessment of his office for perhaps the billionth time to take his mind off things. While he'd been spending nights at the Agency, Annalisa did a fair amount of redecorating: the desk he was sitting at was now backed up against a window, with the one reserved for his seldom-used desktop computer in the niche across from him. He smiled bemusedly, thinking of how many outdated files were stored on that "aging piece of junk," as Anna put it.

His eyes widened in revelation. Slowly, Dr. Bianchi rose from his seat and walked over to the secondary desk, sitting down and staring long and hard at the black screen of his computer. He could discern no thin coating of dust that _should_ have been on the monitor. The oak desk was in tip-top condition, perfectly polished and clean. His hands moved to the processor, almost as if led by a force not belonging to the doctor, and pressed the ON button. Then they started for the monitor.

It took the desktop a few moments to boot up. Dr. Bianchi continued to stare, mouth agape, several different things running through his mind as he watched a new wallpaper load: a charming painting he instantly recognized as the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.

"Annalisa," he muttered simply. He clicked on the Start Bar and followed the pop-up screen all the way to the documents folder. He clicked once and immediately, a window full of several documents that he recognized as names of each of the cyborgs and the corresponding dates of their therapy sessions. At the top were familiar names such as "Alessa," "Beatrice," and "Clarice".

"Oh. Oh, good lord," he said, recoiling in fear. He had suddenly lost his appetite for the _ribollita_. "Don't tell me she actually went through my files and copied them to the computer..."

_She knows._

"Ric?" ventured Anna. Although he couldn't see her, Dr. Bianchi knew she lingered at the threshold. "Are you finished with the _ribollita_?"

"N-not yet," he replied, scrolling down the large list of cyborgs organized by name, sorted by date. He picked out other names, such as Angelica, Henrietta, Triela, even Claes's, whose sessions stopped their frequency just shortly before the day of Raballo's departure and were only present twice a month from that point, on. He heard a door creak, and the sound of Anna walking towards him, her feet thumping routinely against the floor. When she came into clear view, she looked paler than usual.

"I'm sorry," she said, and the doctor noticed that her hair was now braided. It must've been getting late. "I looked through them when I was redecorating, I couldn't help it, they were just there. I'm sorry. I thought I would do you a favor by organizing the files, and I took a few out and read them... I never knew..."

"It's fine," Dr. Bianchi said. "It's-it's fine. Thank you."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Anna."

She left.

That wasn't where Dr. Bianchi's wandering ended, however. He clicked out, returning to the main documents folder, where there were a few subfolders scattered about. The mouse waited on one of the icons, labeled "Prototypes".

He wasn't sure what made him look, in retrospect. He could have chose to turn the computer off and never peruse the files ever again. But instead, he double-clicked, and waited for the list to load. His eyes traveled down the lengthy number of prototypes of the cyborg program, long before Angelica became the first success and paved the way for the Agency. None of the previous children really had handlers, just a different person coming in every day to talk to them, to train them, until the kid could take no more or something went wrong and he or she perished. But there was one girl, one who actually had a name, Giacinta, or Subject #51. At only eleven years of age, she had been abandoned by her family after being diagnosed with cancer and lived a dreary existence in an orphanage. She was the last girl before Angelica arrived, and arguably the most successful out of all her predecessors.

Dr. Bianchi knew, because she had been his cyborg.

She was the first subject to be given a permanent handler, just to see what the effects of teamwork would have — they were tremendous. Though the doctor's hand-to-hand combat was mediocre, he taught her all that he knew, most especially his vast know-how of science, biology and mathematics. Giacinta was more than receptive. In time, she began to adore whom she thought of as a smart older brother, and Dr. Bianchi did so in turn. With the intelligence he gave her, Giacinta seemed as though she would have a good life, but he knew deep down it was futile to even hope for her to have an existence outside of the Agency.

Then, one day, she died. It had been unplanned for. The doctors who were in charge of the cyborg's prosthetics and artificial organs realized that they had not entirely eradicated her cancer. At the time, it seemed amazing to Dr. Bianchi that the same men who could bring children from near-death situations back to life, couldn't save the one who had cancer.

He kept the only picture of them together at the Agency. She was so small for an eleven-year-old, he could carry her easily in his arms. The only time they were allowed to go into one of the piazzas, people on the street mistook her for his daughter despite her hair being blonde.

Then again, if Jean and Giuseppe could get away with being brothers... Dr. Bianchi chuckled. Noting the two handlers' physical differences was one of his amusing pastimes.

He looked over her file. A picture of her was featured alongside her story, looking disturbingly like your standard mugshot, and she did not smile. There was instead something hollow present in her eyes, and now that he thought about it, she reminded him not of Clarice, but more like another cyborg at the Agency, Natalia. And, as it would be, Natalia _was_ Clarice's younger sister, not that either girls knew of it...

Perhaps, because Giacinta's death was of a disease-related circumstance and not murder or anything "unclean", was why Dr. Bianchi felt so miserable each time he thought about it. Would it have been easier to stomach, knowing that she had been sniped while on the job, rather than dying of another human being's error?

And still, on those wintry days, he would watch Henrietta, Triela and Rico walking together on the Agency's vast grounds, and wish that perhaps Giacinta could be there too.


	8. the pistol

**THE PISTOL**

Hecate watched the clock on the wall. 6:57, it read. She followed the hand that checked off the seconds with her blue eyes, filled with curiosity and quiet acceptance that the man who introduced himself to her had still not come for her as another day was reaching its end. She wasn't frustrated; not even sad, just interested why he wasn't there yet. It seemed to her like he left as soon as he arrived, and all she got out of it was a name and an explanation.

She regarded the empty syringe on her bedside table. Each day, a different man in scrubs came in and stuck her with that needle. She never asked what he was injecting her with, but it made her strangely sleepy. The next day, she couldn't remember a whole lot. The face of the person who introduced himself as Marco Togni was becoming dimmer and dimmer, and she hoped he would appear to refresh her memory, or else she would forget his face completely.

Hecate looked back at the clock. 7:01 PM. It would be time for sleep soon.

"I guess...he's not coming," she said, and sighed. She laid down in her bed with her eyes still on the wall clock, allowing her platinum blonde tresses to spill over the firm pillow beneath her head, when suddenly, she heard footsteps outside. Most likely another doctor in scrubs here to give her a shot. She sat upright, awaiting her visitor with a frown.

However, it was not a man in scrubs; quite the contrary. He was dressed in rather normal attire and held an oddly-shaped case — one to carry an instrument in, she assumed — in his right hand, and had his other one safely tucked away in his pocket. He grimaced when he looked at the young girl seat in the bed, and hesitated as he walked in, allowing the door to close behind him.

"I didn't think you would come, Mr. Togni," Hecate said, smiling slightly. "I almost forgot what you looked like."

Marco placed the black instrument case on the floor next to the girl's bed and sat down in one of the chairs. "Yeah, well..." he began tentatively, "I needed time to think about things. At least I didn't desert you completely, right?" He chuckled. The joke was lost on Hecate, who continued to smile as though it was the only thing she knew how to do.

Leaning over and lifting the case off the tiles, Marco placed it over his lap. He glanced at Hecate. "Let me tell you about your job." He opened it. Resting where a violin should be was a funny-looking object, something that registered in Hecate's mind as a gun, though it was hardly any sort of gun she'd ever seen. It was like a large black pistol, yet different. She couldn't summon up any words to explain its existence.

"This," Marco said, taking it out and holding it up for Hecate to see, "Is a Steyr MPi 81 submachine gun." She reached and touched it lightly, making a soft sound of intrigue. Marco snickered. "Take it, it's not loaded," he said, offering it to her. Hecate nodded diligently and accepted the SMG from him, observing it from different angles. It was very, very lightweight in her hands. Marco stood up and reached behind him, and revealed a more pistolesque gun, still in a jet-black color. Hecate put the SMG on the bed gently and took the pistol while Marco sat down, observing her and resting his head in his left hand.

"What is this one called?" she inquired, turning the barrel on her eye. Instinctively, Marco slapped the gun out of her hand, shocking her. She looked at him questioningly.

"Don't point it towards your eye, you'll kill yourself on accident," he said roughly. "Your eye is your only physically weak spot. Protect it at all costs during combat or else you'll become vulnerable to the enemy."

"O-oh..." she said, picking the gun up again, this time being careful not to direct it towards her eye. "S-so, what is this one called?"

"Steyr GB, it's a handgun," he answered shortly. For a moment, she was afraid she had touched a nerve, when he continued, "That and the MPi 81 will be your two primary weapons. I'm supposed to choose an assault rifle for you as well, but I...haven't gotten around to that yet." He averted his gaze. "Anyway, you'll begin weapons training in about a week. Then we'll get started on hand-to-hand combat."

"Are you going to leave me here?" she asked, trying not to make it sound like she was desperate.

"No, you're going back to the dorm. Make sure you become reacquainted with the other girls, they could really help you out in the future," Marco said. "Hand me the submachine gun." She obliged, and he stored it back in its case. He rose, also grabbing the pistol off the bed and putting it back on his belt loop. "Alright, let's go."

Her arms shaking slightly, Hecate gripped the corner of the bedside table with one hand and tried to push herself off the mattress, only to fall, hitting the floor. Marco made no move to assist her as she struggled to get up, her elbows wobbling dangerously before giving out on her a second time. "Could you help me into that wheelchair, Marco, sir?" she asked.

"Not used to the prosthetics, are you?" he grunted. "Forget the wheelchair, use these." He snatched a pair of crutches that had previously been resting against the opposite wall and handed them to his new protégée, who graciously took them.

Once she got to her feet, she turned to Marco and said, "It's funny, but... These prosthetics feel familiar, but I can't use them that well." She paused thoughtfully. "And you seem familiar also." She went after him out the door and down the hall, lagging a little. Marco ignored her and continued on, silently fighting with himself.

He suddenly stopped. "You'll be needing a haircut," he said.

"Why?"

"Because," he said, reaffirming his grip on the violin case and starting at his own pace again. "Just because. Your hair is too long, we'll need to trim it a bit. You could also stand for a new hairstyle. How does that sound?"

"That's...fine..." Hecate replied, brows furrowed. It was a look Angelica had given him several times: one of misunderstanding, confusion. He didn't want to see it, but he could feel her eyes bore into the back of his head like a drill. How unnerving.

They stopped in front of the elevator. Mutely, Marco pressed the button and waited until it chimed, signaling that the elevator had arrived to their floor. As the doors slid open, he immediately made out a German man wearing a black topcoat, a pair of jeans and a beret, while to his left was a German girl also sporting a beret, but instead matched a pair of olive green slacks and a sable longcoat with her attire. Both wore the same style of brown leather shoes, and they stood on opposite sides of the small room. The girl folded her arms and gave Marco a biting "hello".

He strolled inside and took his place beside the console of assorted buttons. Frantically, Hecate crossed over the threshold as if her life depended on getting inside before the doors shut. Once in, she muscled nervously between the man and the girl, and gazed up at the man with some kind of bizarre politeness. He seemed troubled, perhaps by his cyborg's disdain for being in his presence.

The doors closed and the elevator began to lower them to the ground floor. Marco seemed at a loss for what to say, and fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve, a bad habit he quit long ago but for some reason had decided to make a surprising comeback a little while after Angelica's death.

"So how are things, Germain?" he inquired, glancing at the German man. "Still working that murder/suicide case?"

"Not anymore," Germain answered. "We've managed to keep it tightly under-wraps. Section One will never suspect a thing."

"Hmm. You sound discouraged."

"It's nothing." As he made to look at his cyborg to his left, his eyes stopped rather suddenly on Hecate. He gave a jolt of surprise and shrieked, causing the girl to clamp her hands over her ears, though Hecate was unmoved and merely watched him, unblinking.

"Wow, that was loud!" she said, laughing a little. She turned to the longhaired girl next to her. "Umm...don't you think so?"

"No," was the quiet reply.

Another ding sounded and the doors opened. Immediately Germain and the unnamed girl walked out at a quick pace, leaving Marco and Hecate behind. Marco exited casually and waited for Hecate to catapult her legs across the grid. Once she did, he set off for the lobby, and idly noted the time on the wall: it was nearing eight o'clock. Curiously, Germain and his cyborg were nowhere to be seen, but Marco paid it little thought. He paused in front of the glass doors, leaning ever-so-slightly against one and allowing the wintry air to seep in and invade the heat of the room. For a moment, he entertained himself with the mental image of the cold launching an all-out assault upon the heat's territories. The clunking of Hecate's crutches let him know she was fast approaching, however.

In a few moments, they felt a frosty blast on their faces. A nearby parked car had hints of ice coating on the windshield. Luckily for Rome, however, it very rarely snowed during wintertime, so the most the handlers had to deal with was their cyborgs complaining of the outside temperature.

"Will we walk, sir?" Hecate asked, shivering. It was that moment when Marco realized that she was still wearing pants and a T-shirt supplied by the hospital.

"That depends. Do you feel up to walking all the way?"

"Well, no, not really...it's very cold."

"Then we'll drive."

"But how far are the dormitories from here? I really don't want you to go through the trouble..."

"Look at you, you're freezing," he said, unlocking his Fiat Coupé with his keys. "Wait there." He crossed over to the back seat, opened it, and placed the violin case on the seats. He closed the door gently and went around to the other side of the car, opening the passenger's side up. He beckoned Hecate. Tentatively, she tried to walk, leaning largely on the crutches for support. Marco's eyes widened behind his spectacles; she was showing much more improvement than any other cyborg had before.

He could've punched himself for that thought. _Of course she'll improve faster, she's used to them,_ he mused bitterly. _It was the same thing with Angelica when she got out of the hospital._

"Say, Hecate, can you play an instrument?" he asked. The blonde gazed upwards slowly, then shook her head.

"No," she replied. "Should I learn?"

"It...would be wise." He coughed. He still couldn't get the image of Clarice's indifferent expression when she emerged from the warehouse carrying Angelica's dead body when he looked at Hecate. "It can help you learn to use your prosthetics. Some of the, uh, other girls here know how to play violin and one or two girls can play the piano." He could've sworn there was a cello and a flute mixed in there somewhere, but it wasn't Marco's job to keep track of which instruments each cyborg played.

"So a violin?" Hecate said.

"I suppose so."

She had finally reached him. Marco moved out of the way as she climbed into her seat with some trepidation, and took the crutches, storing them in the back seat. He closed both doors and clambered into the driver's seat, starting the car and allotting some time for the engine to warm itself from its short dormancy. Hecate sat with her hands together in her lap, staring straight ahead as if in deep thought. He paid her no mind and kicked the car in reverse, backing out slowly, and then shifted gears once again.

Then: "Mr. Marco—"

"_I told you_, just call me 'Marco'," he corrected sharply. A second later he regretted acting so harshly towards her, for she stopped talking instantly. Attempting to reconcile, he added, "I... Sorry, go on."

"Marco, can I hold the pistol again?"

His eyebrows contracted in momentary surprise, but nevertheless, he reached behind him and grabbed the pistol from his belt. She took it, running her thumb over the barrel in some sort of twisted manner of worship, or something similar to it. Marco couldn't help but suppress a shudder, but said nothing to her and averted his gaze.

Neither said much else for the duration of the drive.

He got out, staring up at the two or so stories that made up the Agency's cyborg 'warehouse' (how he hated that word), as it was called. There were a few lights still on, coming from rooms he'd never been inside of. He opened the back seat and grabbed the crutches, shut the door for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that evening, and helped Hecate out. She parted with the handgun reluctantly, and started for the building while Marco was still at the car. He tossed the pistol into her seat and slammed the door with a little more force than he would've liked.

He crossed over quickly to Hecate's side and walked with her the rest of the way, the engine of his car rumbling behind them. Clearly he wasn't intending to stay long. Hecate opened one of the double doors by herself and went inside. There was not much; just a staircase going up and an opening in the wall that led to a deserted cafeteria. She frowned.

"Um... This is going to be difficult, isn't it?" she said.

"Here, give me your crutches."

Alarmed, she turned around, shock written upon her features. Marco nodded as if affirming what he'd said, and she asked, "Why?"

"Because you need to climb the staircase without them. I'll bring them up to you once you've gotten on the first floor."

Not entirely trusting, she went closer to the staircase before handing the first crutch to Marco, and then the other. Immediately her left hand went for the railing and her right on the wall, as if steadying herself. She took the first step up the stairs and looked down to see Marco standing at the base. He grinned despite himself and said, "I'll catch you if you fall, don't worry about it."

She nodded uneasily and took the next step, wondering if it might've been more difficult if she hadn't felt so comfortable with these so-called "prosthetics" (which she still felt were a little too lifelike to really be fake). With each step she took upwards, the floorboards beneath her foot creaked, and she winced.

Finally, she reached the top. She guided herself along the wall and leaned against it as Marco came up the stairs after her, doing it with remarkable speed that she felt put her to shame. He offered the crutches to her, but she declined.

"I'm going to see if I can get around without them," she said.

They traveled down the hallway, attempting to be as quiet as possible, until they finally arrived to a room. Marco took out his car keys again and examined each key attached to the metal loop. He tried a few keys before muttering, "Feels like it's been forever since I had to unlock this door..."

Eventually, he did get it, and Hecate stumbled inside the dorm, drenched in darkness and silence. She was able to easily locate the lightswitch and flicked it on. The room was very plain and standard, with a floor rug, a single bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. Curious, she walked carefully to it and opened its doors. Inside were about a dozen or more hanging dresses, all rather uniform in black and white. There were also many different shoes on the floor below them. On the sides, shelves, with folded shirts, pants, shorts, and skirts separated from each other. The clothes on the shelves seemed more bright and exuberant than the dresses.

She turned around and stared at Marco, one lightly-colored eyebrow lifted questioningly. "Did you buy all of this for me?"

He hesitated. "Well, er, kind of, I mean, they were for someone else... Look, okay, the clothes on the shelves are definitely yours, those dresses are hand-me-downs." _Which I wish I hadn't decided to give to her, but it was money well-spent,_ he added as an afterthought.

Hecate seemed to accept his explanation, and shifted through the dresses slowly. "Do I have a nightgown of some sort in here?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's the white slip, right there." He pointed to it. She pulled it off the clothes hanger and examined it with curiosity, then gazed down at the hospital scrubs she was still wearing. She made a feeble sweeping gesture with her hand at Marco, and said, "Go out there, I want to change."

Though slightly bewildered by her sudden command, he obliged, leaving the crutches next to the door and then closing it. Outside in the hallway, he could hear sounds upstairs on the third level, and realized that not all the cyborgs were already asleep.

"I'm done, sir," she said, her voice muffled. He opened the door and re-entered. She beamed, as if expecting praise, and he frowned, unwilling to give it.

"Okay, listen up. Bathrooms are on the top floor. Don't go wandering around outside of this building. Try to make nice with the other girls, I'm sure they'll be the same to you if you are. Training starts in two weeks, which by then I'm sure you'll be accustomed to using your limbs. You will be getting your hair cut tomorrow. There's a cafeteria on the bottom floor if you get hungry. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner once every day," Marco explained. She watched him with rapt attention. He swallowed thickly and continued, "The other girls can probably teach you many things. And speaking of teaching, you'll be attending class in two weeks as well. School days are Monday-Friday, no exceptions."

"Yes, sir."

"Goodnight."


End file.
